The present technology relates to an image processing apparatus, method, and program, and more particularly, to an image processing apparatus, method, and program enabling simpler image combining.
For example, a user may take commemorative photographs when traveling with another user as a pair. In such a case, image combining is a conceivable technique for obtaining an image capturing the two users.
In other words, the first user may first take a photograph of the second user and a landscape. Thus, a first photographed image is obtained. Subsequently, the second user may take a photograph of the first user and the landscape. Thus, a second photographed image is obtained.
By subsequently combining the first and second photographed images thus obtained, it is possible to obtain a combined image capturing the two users together with the landscape.
For example, JP 2003-274263A discloses technology for realizing such image combining. However, since the seam between the first and second photographed images is taken to be a straight line, combining images involves photographing people such that they do not overlap that line, which is inconvenient.
Accordingly, there have been proposed technologies that utilize graph cut techniques to adaptively determine the positions of a seam between photographed images (see JP 2011-138313A and JP 2011-139288A, for example.)
With such technology, regions presumed to be humans are detected from photographed images, a stronger value is set for a data parameter corresponding to the detected portions, and a smoothing parameter is additionally set according to the differential strength between two photographed images. A seam is then adaptively determined by graph cut techniques so as to minimize the sum of the data parameter and the smoothing parameter.